


Reasons to Stay Indoors

by seimaisin



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-03
Updated: 2003-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seimaisin/pseuds/seimaisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel isn't quite comfortable in his own head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasons to Stay Indoors

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-"Lifeboat", season 7. Title and inspiration from Savoy's "Reasons to Stay Indoors":
> 
>  _You're really not quite well  
>  You know that  
> And everyone can tell  
> You know the reasons to stay indoors  
> You don't need anymore  
> you remind me of the man  
> I once was  
> And some say  
> I still am_

Daniel returned to his apartment the next day. Janet had strongly recommended he stay on the base, and both Sam and Jack had (separately) urged him to come home with them, stay overnight, get some rest while they watched over him. He appreciated all the concern, but his mind was a jumbled mess; it was impossible to sort through the voices within while the voices without nagged at him.

He wasn’t quite sure why his apartment had been such an important destination, now that he was standing in the middle of the living room. It was still a small white box, nothing on the walls, the few possessions he’d re-accumulated lying in stacks around the room. When he moved in, he bought the first set of furniture he saw as he walked into the department store – the sales lady thought he was crazy, but he really didn’t want to deal with it. A couch was just something to sit on, a bed just something to sleep on. The apartment didn’t feel like his, why should the furniture? His real home – the one he’d known for five years – was long gone, sold piece by piece and rented to a newlywed couple soon after he had … died? Ascended? Back here on earth, neither term sounded right to his ears. Whatever had happened, he was back where he started, only without anything except his friends. God knows he appreciated the love, but really, sometimes he just wanted to read his books.

(In a lucky accident, he actually bought a set of his own books on Ebay – he recognized his own handwriting in the margins the moment he flipped through the first volume. The covers, however, were irrevocably damaged with a sticker advertising the website of the seller. After ascertaining that they weren’t selling any more of his possessions, he declined to leave any positive feedback.)

After turning around the room several times, Daniel finally gave up. The books weren’t calling to him, the tiny television in the corner didn’t have cable, and he hadn’t bothered hooking up his internet connection at home yet. He wasn’t willing to sit on the couch and stare at the plain white wall, though, so after a moment of indecision, he decided to take a shower. There, that was an activity.

With water pounding on his back, he leaned his forehead against the shower wall and breathed deeply. His brain felt as empty and white as the walls. His uninvited guests had created an internal cacophony that, after a little while, he’d gotten used to. It didn’t hurt him physically, not back there in the little corner he’d retreated to. They were just loud. Martice wanted control at all times, and barked orders to any other person who talked to Janet. He was slightly gentler with Keenin, but yet, he barely tolerated the boy. He told one of the others, a male, not Tryen, someone who hadn’t been assertive enough to surface, that he hadn’t seen the point of bringing the child on the ship with them, anyway, that they should have waited to have more children when they were safely to their new home. The woman, Aja, cried a lot, especially after hearing Tryen explain their bodies were dead. Everyone had an opinion, and no one wanted to leave his body. After a while, he gave up arguing with them. If they were so impressed with his body, then maybe they could have it. They’d abandon it without a second thought the second Teal’c and Sam put him through his paces in the gym, anyway. Apparently, being dead for a year had left him somewhat out of shape. Who knew?

His mind wandered, and behind closed eyes, he saw the corridors of the Stromos, Dark, with the barest of lights illuminating the chambers. He walked through the ship, looking at each sleeping face as he passed. They all looked so peaceful. So trusting. In stasis, they had no doubts that they would all be revived at the end of the journey, exit the ship, and look upon their new home, Ardena. Daniel stopped at the chamber carrying Keenin. His face was so open. He trusted his father to bring him home.

He knew, as he looked at them, that they were in trouble. The power was failing, and some of them would die. The engine room was destroyed, and the few crewmembers left awake were crushed underneath the debris. The control room looked like a tornado had hit it. The cryogenic chambers were mostly unharmed, only because the ship builders had made sure they were in the deepest recesses of the ship. People, after all, were the most valuable cargo they carried. This corridor was unharmed, but if he looked to the left, he could see the blinking lights, warning the ship personnel of impending doom. Trouble was, no one was awake or alive to heed them.

Daniel opened his eyes. What was he seeing? This was not a memory from his unwelcome guests – none of them had been awake to see this. None of them, not even Tryan, had seen the devastation in the rest of the ship, but yet he pictured it vividly, crushed body parts and all. He knew the warning light was accompanied by a loud, high-pitched whine, designed to bring any conscious crewmember running. This was the failsafe alarm, never before activated. No one in his head had been a member of the testing crew, so none of them would have any reason to know the sound.

He turned off the water in the shower, but remained standing inside. He squeezed his eyes shut, and willed the vision of the Stromos back into his field of vision. Yes, there it was, plain as day. This wasn’t a hallucination, or a false memory brought by his own experience in the ship. This was a real memory. His memory.

The images now came in a rush, so jumbled that he could barely make sense of them. The Stromos had crashed months before, nearly a year earlier. The power faded slowly – it was weeks before the ship’s computer finally realized that no one was left to help, and revived Pharrin as a last resort. Daniel could see Pharrin running through the corridor, checking power on every memory module he could get to before finally collapsing in a heap in the corner, crying out of frustration. There was nothing the man could do. Daniel knew what he did not, that the current power would last for mere months, slowly draining away until there would be no choice but to sacrifice the life support devices.

He wanted to help. He could have helped.

Daniel realized he was remembering. He wasn’t looking at anyone else’s memory – this was his own, one of the many he’d lost when he returned to this plane of existence. He’d witnessed the crash of the Stromos. He’d seen the Stargate near the crash site, and knew that help could arrive through there. He didn’t know, however, if it would come in time for the people of the ship. He could make help arrive, though, if only he could contact his friends. He could save these people.

He wasn’t allowed to. Why wasn’t he allowed to?

Just as he pushed for this small piece of information, the image faded from view. He’d grabbed a handful of sand, and the more he tightened his grip, the more grains slipped through his fingers. He willed the memory back, but soon, all he was left with was a dry shower and a sense of frustrated anger. He couldn’t see what he needed to see, but he knew now that he’d failed the Stromos twice over. Good people had died because he could do nothing. He almost wished they’d left the people in his head. At least, if they were still there, he’d know they were alive. That wouldn’t be failure, would it?

Everyone, it seemed, died on his watch. No matter what he did, no matter where he was, what plane of existence he lived on, he could not do what was needed. There was always a reason for failure. There was always a rule, always a regulation, always a logical explanation. Logical. Yet, they were all dead, just the same. Loved ones, strangers, it didn’t matter. They suffered, while he lived here in his room, alone, with only memories he could not touch to keep him company.

Later, Daniel lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the same color white as the walls; his personal padded cell. Was this a prison, this sterile room, a faint shadow of the home he used to have? Sleep was a long time coming, but when it finally arrived, it was welcome. Unconscious, he could no longer hear the voice of recrimination. His own voice.


End file.
